As a kid, This Island Earth, to me was boring slow and nothing that said “sci-fi” to me. Yes it looks better than most 1950’s genre flicks, the make-up and monsters are well done. And it is scripted well and acted pretty well too. But it always felt like what an adult thought sci-fi should be.

As I’ve gotten older, my opinion of the movie hasn’t changed very much. It looks and feels like it should be a good movie, but it just seems so pointless. A round trip bus ride in space that accomplishes nothing. Some spirited words about free will and all, but it all feels so empty. Maybe this was a try to show sci-fi could be adult drama, which I guess it succeeded at, but it should have been, could have been, so much more.

The time cut for MST3K: The Movie, about 20 minutes, did weaken the film. There is more about the war Exeter’s people are involved in, and more about Ruth, Cal and The Professor conspiring against Exeter and why the other scientists couldn’t be trusted. We also miss an attack on the ship as it nears Metaluna and some great matte paintings of Metaluna were cut from the riffed version. I won’t say the cuts were unfair, but the overall story and decisions make more sense.

Rex (Dr. Cal Meacham) Reason was the main scientist in The Creature Walks Among Us, the third and most forgettable of the Gill-Man movies. Jeff (Exeter) Morrow was also in The Creature Walks Among Us as well as The Giant Claw (an all-time bad creature effect movie) and Kronos (a better than it deserves to be robot attack movie).

Coleman Francis sighting: he is the delivery man who brings the catalog to Dr. Meacham.

I’m watching the trailer (thank you DVD) and it looks like it was sold as an adventure/questing movie (2 ½ years in the making, as if that is a good thing, it tells me) and not the polite, “let’s chat about everything and take a nice drive to Grand’s” it turned out to be.

Watchability: 2 of 5. It isn’t a bad movie, it is just kind of dull. If you asked me “what was the message of the movie”, well, something about free will, I suppose. I just don’t really see the point of the story.

Missing the Riffs: 3 of 5. While The Movie isn’t my favorite experiment, that is mostly because of the host segments. They riffs about the movie are pretty good. I’d rather watch the riffed version but would probably just choose a different experiment to watch.

This is an odd watch to get through. There isn’t enough time to tell the story. There is no sympathy for The Creeper (Rondo Hatton). And there is the uncomfortable knowledge about the parallels in life between Rondo and the Creeper.

This is one of the few times I wished a movie had a little more time to work with. Run time 59 minutes. So many things needed some fleshing out, not that I think the people behind this film could have effectively added 10-20 minutes to the story.

Definitely a movie where you spend most of your time thinking what could be improved.

So, Hal Moffit was a jerk with anger management and we’re surprised he turned out mean? Knowing the story of Rondo Hatton (he died a few months after finishing this movie) I really wanted to have a connection, some feeling for The Creeper. Maybe they thought Helen (Jane Adams) Paige could add a human element to the Creeper (This is the 3rd of Rondo’s movies where he plays a murderer named the Creeper, sort of how Tor Johnson was seemingly always Lobo!) but it just doesn’t work. Again, more time with Helen and Hal might have helped build more sympathy.

More likely, Rondo was malformed enough to look like a monster, but not talented enough to play one.

There is an exploitative air around this movie and not in a good way.

Watchability: 1 of 5. Not a good movie and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t think I’ll watch unriffed ever again.

Missing the Riffs: 1 of 5. Mike and the Bots are needed for this one, trust me.

Jumps out of the gate, with another cut opening. I guess they thought MST3K viewers would assume a blast off.

Like so many others, I have a love/hate with the Cor-Man. The man could really make due with whatever the fates handed him. He never ran from what he is, a B-Movie man, even to today with the SyFy movies he is involved with. We have programed ourselves to think ‘bad’ when we hear of the Cor-Man, when actually in his abundance there are a few diamonds shining.

Compare Blood Beast with The Screaming Skull. Both have a small cast, limited settings and clearly a lack of cash. But the Cor-Man actually has a little something here to work with. He makes it look like a movie, not like security cam footage or a weekend experiment by film students. He knows how a movie should look, and he will get everything he can out of his nickels and dimes. Isn’t this just Alien, 20 years early?

That being said. This is a fairly unremarkable movie by the Cor-Man’s standards. He has better ones, he has worse ones. There are better monster make ups in some of his films, and make ups (like Creature from the Haunted Sea) the Blood Beast puts to shame. Blood Beast actually shows up in Teenage Caveman, but the Cor-Man liked to reuse everything: costumes, sets, actors, plots. It is a nicely told invasion movie. The acting isn’t overdone, just a little on the wooden side. The worst effect is the animated blood cells, and for the Cor-man that is a complement (or maybe it was the ‘headless corpse’ with a head).

The photographer girl (Donna) has no expression. No reaction to anything happening until her big scream.

The biggest problem with this movie, is there is always a better choice. A better Cor-Man, a better MST3K Episode, a better alien invasion movie, and so on and so for. At least he didn’t try to pad this movie like Lippert would have. Cor-Man doesn’t waste film.

Watchability: 3 of 5. Could have been so much better, but as a proto-Alien, it isn’t that bad. You are not really missing anything if you don’t watch it, but you won’t regret a viewing.

Missing the Riffs: 2 of 5. The riffs do add a lot to viewing the movie. The MST3K version should be your preferred way to watch.